


One Last Favor

by demalore



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-05
Updated: 2018-07-05
Packaged: 2019-06-05 12:08:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15170438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/demalore/pseuds/demalore
Summary: Merle makes a final request





	One Last Favor

“But Magnus got a freebie! I helped saved the universe, too, ya know!”

Kravitz sighed. “For a holy man at the dusk of his life, you’re being rather...confrontational.”

“Damn right I am, I want what’s coming to me!” Merle weakly flailed his one and a half arms in the air. Kravitz sighed and rested a hand on Merle’s stump, settling him back into the bed. Merle would’ve kicked at Kravitz, too, but found he didn’t have the strength for it anymore. He didn’t have the strength for much of anything anymore.

“Merle, trust me, I see where you’re coming from,” Kravitz pleaded softly, giving Merle’s arm a friendly squeeze. He could still feel Merle struggling, fruitlessly, against the weight of his hand, and the realization brought tears to his bone-dry eyes. “But...this is a big ask, and I want your final moments to be _peaceful_ -”

“Fuck peace!” shouted the Peacemaker, in a voice long gone dusty and distant, “I wanna freebie! I wanna freebie!”

If it wasn’t for the dwarf’s overgrown white beard, multiple missing body parts, and wrinkles that nearly covered his eyes, it would’ve reminded Kravitz of a toddler throwing a tantrum. Merle had been alive hundreds of years, more life than any other dwarf could claim, and he was still acting like a child. Using the little time he had left to be a pain in Kravitz’s ass. Had he truly expected otherwise?

“ _Fine,_ ” Kravitz surrendered. Merle’s whining stopped abruptly. His single eye squinted dubiously at Kravitz.

“Yer not pullin’ my leg, are ya? Cuz I’ve had enough of your limb-pulling for one-”

“No, God, Merle, just listen for a second,” Kravitz snapped. He had promised himself he wouldn’t waste any of Merle’s remaining minutes on petty squabbling. It had been a rather ambitious promise, he knew.

“But you must understand,” Kravitz went on. He felt his fully-fleshed facade begin peeling away, and knew he had to get through these terms and conditions as quickly as he could. “This isn’t just a breach of Reaper code, Merle, this goes against _every_ regulation in this, and, likely, _every other_ universe. Frankly, it may not even be possible, much less...advisable.”

Merle didn’t reply. He just fixed Kravitz with a silent, solemn stare.

Kravitz gripped his scythe. His facial features were gone, and the fingers around his scythe were reduced to glistening bone. Merle’s soul was wavering before his eye sockets--even if the cleric had wanted to take back his request, it was too late anyway.

“All right, Merle,” Kravitz murmured. His tear ducts were gone along with the rest of his flesh-form, a fact he was thankful for. The hitch in his voice was still very much present. He reared back, scythe glistening in the fading evening light.

“One last favor.”

  


None of what he saw made sense. The fact that he could see _anything_ didn’t make sense. This wasn’t one of his members’ memories, as surreal as it seemed. Perhaps not a memory at all. The sea beneath him, the distant island fortress, the robed figure before him...could this all be happening in the present?

John clenched and unclenched his fingers. He laid a hand on his stomach, then brought it up along his tie to the collar of the suit he wasn’t surprised to find himself wearing. All was exactly as he would’ve expected it to be, if he could’ve possibly predicted being dragged out of the inescapable sea of souls. And by such a polite, dapper Reaper, too.

“Why have you done this?” John asked. No joy, no anger, just a cautious curiosity.

“Trust me, mate, ‘twasn’t _my_ decision,” Kravitz answered, more nervous than he thought he’d be when brought face-to-face with The Hunger. A memory of inky black depths, of desperate, rotten hands pulling him down, deeper into nothingness, made him take an involuntary step back.

“Then…” John’s brow furrowed. There was one clear answer, but it slipped through his fingers like a buttered minnow. The whole situation--the anonymous, involuntary summoning--was nauseatingly familiar.

Before he could put words to his realization, Kravitz disappeared, as did the rest of the scene. It took every ounce of his composure not to cry out when he saw where he was now: a board room, a floor-to-ceiling window comprising an entire wall, and a slick black table before him. Parlay.

And as always, only one seat, the one furthest from him, was occupied.

  


Having his old (or, slightly younger) body back felt incredible. Merle had constantly joked about it, but getting older really was the fucking worst. He was still missing a few parts (gee, _thanks_ Kravitz), but his old dwarven strength was right where he left it. He could swing his arms, he could puff out his chest; hell, he could walk again.

But at the sight of John, Merle couldn’t take a single step.

“Hey, ol’ buddy!” Merle boomed across the table. Damn, talking had been so much easier back then! He had really taken that century of youth for granted. “Bet you weren’t expecting to see your good pal Merle again, were ya?”

John raised his eyes slowly. His hand dragged across the table’s glossy surface, but he didn’t take a seat. He glowered down at Merle, sitting cozily in his high-backed office chair.

“ _Are_ we pals, Merle?” he asked icily, in the same strong, assured public-speaking voice Merle had come to expect from him.

“Well, you never actually gave me an answer on that one,” Merle chuckled, “but yeah, aren’t we? Heck, you’re _my_ pal, at the very least!”

John snarled, “So this is a _friendly_ visit, is it, Merle?”

Merle blinked. “Yeah?” John was acting noticeably bitchier than usual, but hey, maybe death just did that to a guy.

“Oh, funny!” John laughed mirthlessly, “Because, silly me, I thought this was some sort of _sick punishment!_ ”

Now Merle frowned. “John, buddy, what are you-”

“Stop calling me that, _Merle!_ ” John spat his name back at him, and it hit like a slap across the face. He was staring out the window, intentionally avoiding Merle’s eyes. “I know I deserve it-- I deserve all of this and more, but if you-- if you cared _one iota_ about me, you’d drop the _fucking_ act.”

John turned back to Merle, but the chair was empty.

“I know there’s liquor somewhere in here,” Merle muttered as he shuffled through the cupboards at the far end of the room. “I told him to stock- ah!”

Merle presented a thick violet bottle of wine with a satisfied smirk. He sat it on the table and set about uncorking it with his bare hands. John could only watch, speechless.

“Merle,” John said with all the restraint he could muster, “do you even _realize_ what you’ve done?”

“I’ve fucked up my last will and testament is what I’ve done.” Merle took a hearty inhale from the open bottle of wine and scrunched his nose. “Shoulda been more specific--this shit’s weaker than the stuff my dad gave me when I was eight. Live and learn, I guess!” he laughed.

“The fact that you’re making jokes is answer enough,” John groaned. He fell back into the chair, which was just as functionally uncomfortable as he remembered it. “Merle, I take it you’re dead?”

“As a doornail,” Merle answered, filling up two wide-bellied wine glasses with the disappointingly weak drink.

John’s mouth curved upwards, but it was in no way a smile. “I should be flattered, then. On your deathbed you chose me, of all people, to torture.”

A fat drop of wine stained the table. Mid-pour, Merle set the bottle down so quickly it spun in lazy circles. Merle leaned forward, straining to meet John eyes-to-eye.

“John, as the founder and head counselor of XTreme Teen Adventures, I’m legally authorized to tell you to drop the _‘tude_ ’, cut the _shit_ , and talk to me straight.”

“Merle, after everything, after... _decades_ of talking, _explaining_ to you, you don’t…” An unfamiliar tingling rose from John’s cheeks to the bags under his eyes. “Merle, this is _hell_. You know that, right? This is _hell_ for me _._ ”

“Well, I wasn’t exactly plannin’ on gettin’ into heaven,” Merle said, only half-joking. “Seriously, I let Magnus believe whatever helps him sleep at night, but we ain’t lawful good. Chaotic, maybe, and that’s on a _good_ day. Hell, you saw us, everyone did, you know-”

“Merle, listen-”

“And this may not be the swankiest place, but _you_ try coming up with something better on short notice!” Merle gestured indignantly at the formal, but admittedly spare, Parlay room. “And I figured, something familiar, y’know, might be a little easier on you.”

“Easier on-” John sputtered, “Merle, I’ve been dead for _ages_. I’ve been here, in this never-ending ocean of nothingness and misery, ever since then, _existing._ And do you know, Merle, the _only thing_ that could make it worse?”

Merle looked John up and down. “A mandatory biz’-cas’ dress code?”

John leaped out of his chair. “To be _reminded_ of it, Merle! To not only be sentenced to an eternity of suffering, but to reminded of what that entails, of everything I’ve lost, and everything I’ve destroyed with my own two-”

He couldn’t finish his rant, only sputter fragments of words that once came so easily to him. That’s how Merle knew this was serious.

“Johnny boy, you’re being a little over-dramatic, aren’t ya? Sure, we’re dead, but other than that, things aren’t half bad! We finally got some time to talk without, y’know, having to worry about one of us killing the other!”

“How nice for you,” John muttered down at the table, “to bring me back, put me through all this, through dying, a second time, all so you can have a little conversation before _you_ go off into _your_ blissful eternity.” He sat back down and let his head fall into his hands.

“Well if you’re gonna be a such a pissbaby about it,” Merle’s voice rose steeply, much to his surprise, “maybe I will!”

John’s sudden smile took him by even more surprise. “Ah. I understand now, Merle. You just wanted a turn at the other side of the table.” He crooked his head up, and then rose back onto his feet. Something in this movement, too, was familiar, but this time there was no multicolored fire at his fingertips.

Merle sunk back into his chair as John approached. The open bottle and untouched glasses before him might as well have been invisible. This memory was painfully fresh for him as well, as if he had just stepped off the Starblaster yesterday. John couldn’t hurt him, there was nowhere for either of them to go, yet Merle had to resist the urge to run.

“Well, looks like you finally got your chance,” John continued, advancing slowly. He knew full well that he was powerless, yet the fear on Merle’s face brought back an ancient feeling of strength, of complete control. John still, improbable though it seemed, had an ironclad grip on Merle. He could still get what he wanted.

John reached forward to take Merle’s hand. Merle flinched, but stayed seated, watching as John brought Merle’s trembling hand to his forehead. Merle tried pulled his hand away, but John kept it where it was, Merle’s calloused palm pressing, gently, against John's damp, clammy forehead.

“Kill me, Merle.” John’s chest was heaving, but he kept his voice steady. He knew all the tricks for keeping his emotions out of his voice, and he had to use each and every one of them now. “You’ve tortured me enough. Send me back. Let me go.”

Merle stopped struggling against John’s grip. The man before him was hunched over, down on one knee, in order to keep his head lowered. When Merle shifted his hand from John’s forehead to his cheek, John didn’t stop him, didn’t flinch in the slightest.

“You’re really in a state, huh, old friend?”

John didn’t answer. He was tearing up, despite his best efforts, and knew that his voice would only betray him, too.

“Swear on my life- er, my death, I wouldn’t have called you in here if I knew how much it’d bother you,” Merle ran his thumb across John’s pale cheek. A clear indicator of someone who hadn’t gone outside in centuries. _And now never would._

“I’ve been here...existing, alone...for so long,” John said. His words were weighed with the ages he had spent in the spectral plane. “It’s unbearable, Merle, it’s everything I ever fought against. But this is...the only thing worse is the suspense, the suspense _you're_ putting me through.”

John pressed Merle’s hand tighter against his cheek, and looked up to meet Merle’s eyes. The action struck John as odd--he had never had to look _up_ at Merle before. “So please, just tell me, if you still _are_ my friend...what are you going to do to me?”

John’s cheeks were squashed on both sides by Merle’s hands. He lurched forward, reflexively shifting his weight off his bent knee and nearly falling to the ground. But Merle kept him steady as he pulled John’s face to his own.

John had spent many a Parlay wondering what it would be like to kiss Merle, to have his face caressed by his flower-filled beard. Now, he thought, wrapping his arms around Merle’s neck and hanging off him like a pendant, he finally knew.

“You still want to go back?” Merle whispered into the corner of John’s mouth. John tried to meet his lips again, if only to stop Merle from talking, but Merle held John’s head still, keeping him from dodging the question with kisses.

“Yes,” John answered reflexively. “No,” he amended. “Merle, it’s just...it’s horrible, Merle, being dead. It’s worse than being alive. At least then I had-”

“Y’know, I’m personally acquainted with a coupla experts in the whole ‘being dead’ business,” Merle interrupted. John could feel the smirk as it twisted through Merle’s face. “I asked ‘em what the deal was with the whole ‘sea of souls’ and shit. And Ba- uh, the _experts_ said, ‘Merle, I’m not half convinced you won't end up in the Eternal Stockade-'”

Neither one of them expected John to burst out laughing, and they both chuckled while Merle recomposed himself.

“-but the afterlife is all about what you make of it. If you make peace with your time alive, with the good you did and the lives you touched, then it’s blissful. You're ‘all in one piece’, he called it.”

“Hm, making peace.” John shifted himself so he was sitting next to Merle in the chair, squeezing himself into the space between the right armrest and the dwarf’s considerable behind. “No wonder you’re so nonplussed about this, making peace is your specialty.”

“Well I’m certainly not famous for my healing abilities!” Merle chortled heartily, and John gave a polite laugh of his own, even though he didn’t really get it.

“And after all I’ve done,” John went on, “everything I put you and everyone else through, you think it’s possible? For me to...find peace, as you put it?”

“Hell no!” Merle gave John a shit-eating grin. John straightened his back with a start, too thrown off to even open his mouth.

Merle’s smirk shattered into gentle, chiding laughter. He relaxed into John, who was still stiff with apprehension.

Merle put his hand back on John’s cheek and turned John’s face toward his own. “That’s why I’m going _with_ you, you sanctimonious bastard.”

John fell into Merle’s arms, simultaneously hiding his emotion-laden face while expressing everything a single, awkward embrace. Merle hugged him back, a little halfheartedly, and gave him a few well-meaning pats on the back.

“But you know we don’t have to leave _now_ , right?” Merle said after a period of very emotional silence.

“We don’t?” John wiped his eyes with his shirt sleeve, wondering out of nowhere whether the afterlife had dry cleaning. “How long, then?”

“I know for a _fact_ Maggie got ten years, easy,” Merle grinned. “If we play ‘em a sob story, I bet we could schmooze ‘em out of _twenty_.”

“Twenty years?” John smiled, and pulled himself out of Merle’s chair. He loosened his tie and took one of the stagnant glasses of wine, hardly containing his ear-to-ear grin.

“We’d better get started, then,” John murmured into his wine, “we’ve got a _lot_ of catching up to do.”

  


They didn’t quite get twenty years together, but no amount of time would’ve been enough. In the end, they went along with Kravitz without too much of a fuss (Merle made a few more jabs about his arm). Upon his return to the sea of souls, John didn’t feel the slightest bit anxious. He was almost excited, following behind Merle without hesitation.

Whoever Merle’s ‘expert’ had been, they were right; John felt complete. He had, after all this time, found his missing peace.


End file.
